Читаем A Dangerous Fortune (1994) полностью

"Micky was with me that evening, but he might have slipped out for a few minutes. It's possible. Do you believe it, Mother?"

Augusta nodded. Micky was dangerous and bold: it was what made him so magnetic. She had no doubt he was capable of committing such a daring murder--and getting away with it.

"I find it hard to accept," Edward said. "I know Micky is wicked in some ways, but to think he would kill...."

"He would, though," Augusta said.

"How can you be sure?"

Edward looked so pathetic that Augusta was tempted to share her own secret knowledge with him. Would it be wise? It could do no harm. The shock of Hugh's revelation seemed to have made Edward more thoughtful than usual. Perhaps the truth would be good for him. It might make him more serious. She decided to tell him. "Micky killed your uncle Seth," she said.

"Good God!"

"He suffocated him with a pillow. I caught him red-handed." Augusta felt a flush of heat in her loins as she remembered the scene that had followed.

Edward said: "But why would Micky kill Uncle Seth?"

"He was in such a hurry to get those rifles shipped to Cordova, don't you remember?"

"I remember." Edward was silent for a few moments. Augusta closed her eyes, reliving that long, wild embrace with Micky, in the room with the dead man.

Edward brought her out of her reverie. "There's something else, and it's even worse. You remember that boy Peter Middleton?"

"Certainly." Augusta would never forget him. His death had haunted the family ever since. "What about him?"

"Hugh says Micky killed him."

Now Augusta was shocked. "What? No--I can't believe that."

Edward nodded. "Deliberately held his head under the water and drowned him."

It was not the murder itself but the idea of Micky's betrayal that horrified her. "Hugh must be lying."

"He says Tonio Silva saw the whole thing."

"But that would mean Micky has been wickedly deceiving us all these years!"

"I think it's true, Mother."

Augusta realized, with a growing sense of dread, that Edward would not give credence to such a wild story without a reason. "Why are you so willing to believe what Hugh says?"

"Because I knew something Hugh didn't know, something that confirms the story. You see, Micky had stolen some money from one of the masters. Peter knew and was threatening to tell. Micky was desperate to find some way of shutting him up."

"Micky was always short of money," Augusta recalled. She shook her head in incredulity. "And all these years we've thought--"

"That it was my fault Peter died."

Augusta nodded.